Wireless infrared remote controls are known comprising a hand held transmitter which when coupled with a receiver in the corresponding piece of audiovisual equipment, enables a user to control the various functions of the said audiovisual equipment at a distance without having to approach or touch the audiovisual equipment. Typically a remote control device consists of a housing which houses electronics, one or more batteries, an interface comprising one or more buttons, in some cases a display with or without touch sensitive areas which relate to the functions to be controlled and one or two infrared transmitter light emitting diodes (LEDs). In normal operation, when the user wishes to alter the settings of a piece of audiovisual equipment at a distance, then in normal operation when one of the remote control buttons is depressed, or the touch sensitive surface is touched, the electronics of the device causes a coded signal to be broadcast by the remote control device, using flashes of infrared light, which is then received by the audiovisual equipment being controlled, the receipt of which triggers electronics within the audiovisual equpiment to perform the desired function. Typically wireless remote controls are used to change the settings of audiovisual equipment, such as; channel (in the case of a television or digital broadcast receiver for example), or track number (in the case of audio equipment or a DVD player for example) without having to approach the equipment. Wireless remote controls may also be used to supplement the main controls of any piece of audiovisual equipment to enable the settings of the device to be changed where it is not possible or practical to put large numbers of buttons or a control interface on the piece of audiovisual equipment itself.
Wand shaped remote wireless controlling devices are also known for use in computer video game interaction, as in earlier published International Patent Application No. WO9728864. In that patent, a wand shaped remote is described for use in conjunction with a personal computer, to enable more immersive role playing with computer games featuring virtual wands. The described device uses a mixture of buttons and movement to facilitate control of the game.
Further hand held wireless mouse devices are also known for controlling personal computers to enable presenters to control their computers while standing up, giving presentations, as in earlier U.S. Pat. No. 7,158,118 Pointing Devices with Orientation Compensation.
However, these known arrangements suffer from the problem that none of them is adapted or has the capability either to function purely by motion and without the use of any buttons to control audiovisual home entertainment equipment, or to be completely encapsulated in a tube or a solid casting of plastic so that small and non-traditional device shapes may be accommodated, in turn so that the remote control may have a shape simulating other objects, in particular an elongate object, such as a wand, which does not have the conventional appearance of a generic remote control device incorporating manually operable control buttons.